PMSC News

Glider pilot optimism

2012-02-02T08:27:00.004-05:00

Australians are optimistic, especially the ones who fly gliders. Following a miserable forecast at Narromine, they moved their national championships to Tocumwal, a six hour trip by car. After only four days' notice the entire crowd (probably in excess of 100 people) was ready to start racing today. This morning they were greeted with this:

It must be difficult to remain optimistic, even for the Aussies!

This reminds me of an experience I had once.

Earth Science Picture of the Day

2012-01-30T10:47:00.008-05:00

This photograph is very small. This is intentional. It makes you want to click on it and read about it, doesn't it?

Belly up

2012-01-25T16:43:00.001-05:00

TV Breakfast

2012-01-23T15:14:00.008-05:00

The 2012 PMSC Sunday breakfast schedule is not actually a secret, we just haven't published the calendar yet. The member in charge of the schedule claims she was busy with an appearance on national TV. I thought supermodels could do anything. I guess I was wrong about that.

Anyway, the first two breakfasts were successful, and the third one will be on Sunday ~~at the Crossroads Cafe in White River Junction at 10am~~ at the Farmer's Diner in Quechee at 9am. If you show up early, you might catch a glimpse of a TV star.

Pampas

2012-01-09T12:10:00.006-05:00

The idea of a Continental Gliding Championships has been around for a long time, but until recently, the only continent to stage such an event has been Europe.

The Third South American Gliding Championships started yesterday in the lowland plains near Buenos Aires. The contest is also serving as the practice contest for the upcoming World Championships at the same site, in December 2012.

The US Team is there. Sarah Arnold, Peter Deane, Francois Pin, and Tom McKnight are racing around the pampas, not too concerned, apparently, by the finer points of field selection:

So far, SoaringSpot has been a better source of results than the contest website, and at least one competitor is keeping a blog (the source of the photo above).

Sarah came in second yesterday!

Continuing education

2012-01-07T20:40:00.003-05:00

EAA is offering a series of webinars over the next few months. At least two of them look to be interesting to glider pilots. The first is about emergency parachutes and will be given by our friend Alan Silver in less than two weeks, on January 19. The other one is on radio communications, scheduled for February 22. Both take place on weekday evenings at 8pm.

The webinars are free, and you don't have to be a member of EAA to attend, You must pre-register, however.

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T16:13:00.003-05:00

We may not be flying (much) this time of year, but at least we can look forward to some social events.

We can expect the 2012 Breakfast Schedule any day now. I'll look for a copy posted at the local library. Our annual meeting will probably occur in early February, as usual.

The NESA party will be January 21 in Springfield.

There will be a combined birthday/Mardi Gras party in February, at an undisclosed location in Post Mills. Details to follow.

Rumor has it that one of our more handsome members is featured in the 2012 SSA Calendar. I'd like to get one, but I can't afford the postage. If anyone can think of an economical way to get a hold of a calendar or two, let me know.

Happy 2012!

Wright Brothers Day 2011

2011-12-17T15:37:00.005-05:00

108 years after Orville and Wilbur ruined their best glider by putting an engine on it, a few hardy PMSC members celebrated by going flying. Andy, Rich, Rick, and Tim took off from Post Mills in various airplanes and headed for Springfield where the hardiest of all NESA members, Walter Striedieck, was preparing a gliding operation.

We flew the PW-6 (I1) four times, and Tim found a nice 2-knot December thermal that gives us the right to claim that soaring is a year-round sport in Vermont.

Meanwhile, Tony (7H) had almost as much fun on a 159km jaunt down in Florida. He must be practicing for his Diamond Distance flight later this Spring.

Near miss

2011-12-09T23:58:00.007-05:00

At 1:50 in the video. You never know what you will find up there.

[Thanks a lot, Gregg. You can give the next club safety briefing. -Ed.]

Soaring 100 Celebration

2011-11-28T09:46:00.004-05:00

Ski season started today

2011-11-25T17:02:00.005-05:00

Congratulations to Tim and Andy for getting into the air on skis today. Rick and Rich are in a tight race for last place again, what else is new?

Come join us this winter. It's an easy and fun way to stay in practice between soaring seasons.

Hemisphere shift

2011-11-25T16:10:00.006-05:00

South of the equator, it's Spring, and once again, our friend Roy B is on his annual African Safari. He will be reporting his flying adventures at Bloemfontein for the next week or so using an unsophisticated blog-like thing called Google Docs.

Club Statistics for 2011

2011-11-03T12:30:00.007-04:00

We had a slow year compared to last year...

SGS 2-33: 62 flts 60:15 hrs (Average 0:58 hrs/flt)

Super Blanik L-23: 5 flts 8:30 hrs (Average 1:42 hrs/flt)

SGS 1-23: 39 flts 36:53 hrs (Average 0:57 hrs/flt)

HPH 304: 48 flts 86:31 hrs (Average 1:48 hrs/flt)

All club gliders: 154 flts 192:19 hrs (Average 1:15 hrs/flt)

For Comparison 2010 totals were:

All club gliders: 419 flts 309:00 hrs (Average 0:44 hrs/flt)

Towplane Usage:

Tows to Club Members (includes encampments): 233 (including 26 tows by Stowe and NESA)

Tows by our Birddog: 234 (including 24 to non-members)

Altitude Towed by our Birddog: 654,300' (124 miles)

Busiest Tow Pilot: Andy L. - 127 tows

Most Tows Given in a Day: 13 (on 10/8/11)

Most Tows by a Pilot in a Day: Andy L - 13 (on 10/8/11)

Instruction:

Formal Dual Instructional Flights - 24

Formal Dual Instructional Flight Time - 17:14 hrs

Busiest Instructor: Rick - 24 flights

Number of First Solo: 1

Number of New Pilot Certificates: 0

Name That Tow Plane

2011-11-03T11:52:00.003-04:00

Double retrieve

2011-10-23T11:24:00.009-04:00

Trailer retrieves are usually pretty easy. Sometimes, when two gliders land in the same field, a double retrieve is necessary. This is somewhat harder, but not usually a big deal. It gets really interesting when nobody in the crew is familiar with disassembling the two aircraft.

At the end of Wave Camp this year, we were faced with trailering home PI (our borrowed Blanik L-23) and our towplane, having put neither one on a trailer before. It was a 2-day ordeal.

On Friday, Mike and Andy put our Blanik trailer back on the road, which involved building wing stands in order to liberate the trailer saddles, and the usual struggle to get the trailer lights working.

The next day, a hardy band of volunteers (Andy, Andy, Bob, Christopher, George, Karl, Tim, Sonny, Walter) traveled back to Gorham and pounced on the L-19. After a couple hours of work, the fuselage and wings were lashed onto trailers provided by Bob and Karl (thanks, guys).

The team then moved on to the L-23 which went onto our old trailer without too much fuss, once they figured out how to remove the horizontal stabilizer.

By 2pm, the convoy was on the road for Post Mills, with the Blanik in the lead, followed by the L-19 fuselage, the L-19 wings, and Andy bringing up the rear in his rolling toolbox.

Back home, they unloaded the wings so Karl could take his trailer home. In all, the double retrieve required 35 man-hours of work, and it isn't over yet. Winter is coming and we still have to move all the bits and pieces of our fleet into their final storage and work spaces. Don't forget to volunteer, especially if you weren't part of the fun last weekend.

Wave Camp

2011-10-19T15:48:00.006-04:00

Great wave camp. There were wave flights on all weekend and holiday days (5). My three flights went to 12K, 26K and 18K msl. How did everyone else do?

Tim

T8's Wx Links for Mt Washington

2011-10-06T11:32:00.004-04:00

I put all of these in a folder on my toolbar called "Mt Wash WX". Then all I need to do to get all the weather I need is click on the folder and select "Open All in Tabs".

There: I just saved you about three minutes a session and at least one case of carpal tunnel syndrome at the margin.

To use these, create a new bookmarks folder, then select the following list of bookmarks (as text) and copy into your new folder.

http://www.drjack.info/BLIP/ETA/NE/FCST/wfpm.curr.18z.png
http://www.drjack.info/BLIP/ETA/NE/FCST/blwindkt_blwinddeg.curr.18z.png
http://www.drjack.info/BLIP/ETA/NE/FCST/hft.curr.18z.png
http://www.drjack.info/BLIP/ETA/NE/FCST/sfcsunwm2.curr.18z.png
http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/cam/ravines/index.php
http://weather.yahoo.com/united-states/new-hampshire/gorham-2412336/
http://aviationweather.gov/adds/satellite/displaySat.php?region=ALB&isingle=multiple&itype=vis
http://aviationweather.gov/adds/progs/
http://aviationweather.gov/adds/winds/
http://www-frd.fsl.noaa.gov/mab/soundings/java/plot_soundings.cgi?airport=bml&start=latest&n_hrs=16&data_source=MAPS

I don't have an opinion on which sounding model is "best", let alone for what reasons. In addition to forecasting possible wave, it's useful to get some idea of temps aloft and forecast possibility of extensive clouds (alt., depth, timing). Maybe someone can chime in here if they have researched this.

Additional useful links solicited.

-T8

Evolution

2011-10-03T13:30:00.002-04:00

Our pile of lumber seems to be returning to its original configuration.

Name that Sailplane

2011-09-26T12:52:00.008-04:00

A clue: Name that airport, then guess the date.

Another photo of this beautiful bird:

Here's the tow plane:

Name that Cover Girl

2011-09-15T16:03:00.002-04:00

Source

Name that sailplane

2011-09-13T14:54:00.003-04:00

Hint: This is the "short span" (23 meter) configuration. This one goes to 28.

No flying today

2011-08-28T11:40:00.004-04:00

Click here for the big version.

Credit: NASA.

Timing is everything

2011-08-24T10:15:00.006-04:00

Tim had an adventurous flight yesterday. He dashed up to Twin Mountain where he got low. He ridge soared back to Franconia where he got high. Then he took a cloudstreet over to Cabot where he got low again. Two hours later he was higher, but not high enough to make the crossing from the central Vermont plateau back to Post Mills. During his struggle, he talked with Moshe, who was nearing the end of his 87 km flight out of Morrisville.

Timing is everything. The day ended half an hour earlier than Tim was hoping, and he called it quits at Montpelier after a 205 km flight. He rolled up to the same spot on Runway 35 that he had visited five days earlier.

This time his crew was ready (and motivated by the prospect of a dinner on the town). Just over an hour after landing out, the 304 was back in the trailer at Post Mills, and the Slackers were off to get pizza.

We beat the crowd at Stella's by a slim margin. Timing is everything.

Montpelier Flytrap

2011-08-18T18:42:00.006-04:00

Montpelier airport is very attractive, like the carnivorous plant in Little Shop of Horrors.

The role of the victim was played today by Tim.

Places to land

2011-08-15T18:06:00.002-04:00

Also from Andy:

A project of mine is to map landable fields and little known airports on Google Maps so everyone can peruse them from the comfort of their favorite web surfing chair.

Check out PMSC Landpoints.

If you'd like to add ones you know about, log in with the same info as XCSkies (ask Andy how to do this -Ed.), hit the Edit button and enter a waypoint or address in the searchbar. Drop a marker, name it, and enter the appropriate comments.

I have Rick's landpoint database and will continue to add from that list, but again please feel free to help out.

Also there's a Google Earth plug-in for your browser. If you need it, click on the map icon in the upper right. You should see the Google Earth icon. Click that and you'll get a prompt to install the plug-in.